• Joy of Music – Over 250 years of quality, innovation, and tradition
Robert Beaser

Robert Beaser

Country of origin: United States of America
Birthday: May 29, 1954

About Robert Beaser

Masterly... dazzlingly colorful, fearless of gesture... beautifully fashioned and ingeniously constructed. - Gramophone Magazine

Robert Beaser is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished creative musicians of his generation. Since 1982, when the New York Times wrote that he possessed a “lyrical gift comparable to that of the late Samuel Barber,” his music has won international acclaim for its balance between dramatic sweep and architectural clarity. He is often cited as an important figure among the “New Tonalists,” composers who are adopting new tonal grammar to their own uses, and through a wide range of media has established his own language as a synthesis of Western tradition and American vernacular.

Beaser’s orchestral CD on London/Argo has garnered considerable attention prompting Gramophone magazine to call his music “Masterly...dazzlingly colorful, fearless of gesture...beautifully fashioned and ingeniously constructed.” The Baltimore Sun writes “Beaser is one of this country’s huge composing talents, with a gift for vocal writing that is perhaps unequaled.” Composed in 1999, his opera The Food of Love, with a libretto by Terrence McNally, is part of the Central Park trilogy, which opened to worldwide critical accolades at Glimmerglass and New York City Opera. The San Francisco Chronicle called his opera “gripping… and arresting... a masterful score with beautiful rhapsodic turns, canny pacing, pungent orchestral writing and magnificently shapely arias.” The Arizona Republic called it “a masterpiece” and USA-Today added, “Beaser’s glistening, percussion-tinged orchestral textures and utterly singable melodies are a joy to hear at every turn.” The opera’s nationally televised broadcast on PBS’s Great Performances received an Emmy nomination in 2000.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Beaser studied literature, political philosophy and music at Yale College, graduating summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa in 1976. He went on to earn his Master of Music, M.M.A. and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Yale School of Music. His principal composition teachers have included Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Toru Takemitsu, Arnold Franchetti, Yehudi Wyner and Goffredo Petrassi. In addition, he studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller, and William Steinberg at Yale, and composition with Betsy Jolas on a Crofts Fellowship at Tanglewood in 1976. From 1978-1990 he served as co-Music Director and Conductor of the innovative contemporary chamber ensemble Musical Elements at the 92nd Street Y, bringing premieres of over two hundred works to Manhattan. From 1988-1993 he was the Meet the Composer/Composer-in-Residence with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and now serves as ACO’s Artistic Director. Since 1993, Beaser has been Professor and Chairman of the Composition Department at the Juilliard School in New York.

Beaser’s compositions have earned him numerous awards and honors. At the age of 16, his first orchestral work was performed by the Greater Boston Youth Symphony under his own direction at Jordan Hall in Boston. In 1977 he became the youngest composer to win the Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome. In 1986, Beaser’s widely heard Mountain Songs was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Contemporary Composition. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Fulbright Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Charles Ives Scholarship, an ASCAP Composers Award, a Nonesuch Commission Award and a Barlow Commission. In 1995, when the American Academy of Arts and Letters honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Academy Award in music they wrote: "His masterful orchestrations, clear-cut structures, and logical musical discourse reveal a musical imagination of rare creativity and sensitivity...and put him in the forefront of his generation of composers."

Beaser’s music has been performed and commissioned with regularity both in America and abroad. He has received major commissions from the New York Philharmonic the Chicago Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, The American Composers Orchestra, The Baltimore Symphony and Dawn Upshaw, The Minnesota Orchestra, Chanticleer, New York City Opera, Glimmerglass, and WNET/Great Performances among others. His music has been performed, recorded and commissioned by artists such as Leonard Slatkin, Paula Robison, Richard Stoltzman, Eliot Fisk, James Galway, Lauren Flanigan, John Aler, Ransom Wilson, Carol Wincenc, Dawn Upshaw, David Zinman, Gerard Schwarz, Dennis Russell Davies, Christopher Taylor, Manuel Barrueco, Renée Fleming, Lukas Foss, Paul Sperry, Kim Kashkashian, Alasdair Neale, Stewart Robertson, and Big Bird. His music is featured on commercial recordings released on many record labels including London/Agro, Milken Archives, New World Records, EMI-Electrola, Koch, Siemens and Innova.

Recent events for Robert Beaser and his music include the debut and subsequent European tour of his orchestral work of Evening Prayer by Federico Cortese and Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2008; the 2009 premiere of Guitar Concerto, featuring renowned virtuoso Eliot Fisk, which continues to see performances with Fisk and orchestras across the country. In December of 2010, Steven Davis led the University of Missouri-Kansas City Wind Ensemble through the world premiere of Beaser's Manhattan Roll in a new arrangement for wind band. The performance kicked off a tour of over 25 bands across the US. Beaser composed Ground "O" in 2011 in honor of Gerard Schwarz's final season as Music Director of the Seattle Symphony. The premiere took place on February 17, 2011 in Seattle. In 2015, Kevin Sedatole led the premiere of Beaser's The End of Knowing for soprano, baritone and wind ensemble with the Michigan State University Band, which was commissioned by a consortium of 27 bands.

Worklist

Chronology

1954
Born May 29, 1954 in Boston, MA
1976
Conducted the Greater Boston Youth Symphony through his first orchestral work at Jordan Hall in Boston, MA

Graduated summa cum laude from Yale University
1977
Received Prix de Rome from American Academy in Rome; the youngest composer to win the award
1978-90
Served as co-Music Director and Conductor of the innovative contemporary chamber ensemble Musical Elements at the 92nd Street Y
1982
"Il est ne, le divin enfant " premiered on the PBS special Christmas at the Kennedy Center with Leontyne Price
1985
Members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra perform the world premiere of "Songs from The Occasions" for tenor and chamber ensemble, conducted by Beaser and featuring tenor Paul Sperry.
1986
Beaser's "Mountain Songs" nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Contemporary Composition.
1987
Flutist Paula Robison joins the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in the world premiere of "Song of the Bells", Beaser's concerto for flute and orchestra.
1990
Beaser's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra" debuts with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, led by Leonard Slatkin and featuring soloist Pamela Mia Paul.
1991
"Double Chorus" premiered by Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Jean, conductor
1992
American Composers Orchestra premiere "Chorale Variations" at Carnegie Hall, led by Dennis Russell Davies.
1994
Argo releases the all-Beaser album "The Seven Deadly Sins", featuring his orchestral works "Chorale Variations", "The Seven Deadly Sins" and "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra".

David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra debut "The Heavenly Feast" for soprano and orchestra.
1995
Beaser honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
1998
"Manhattan Roll" premiered by the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall in New York, conducted by David Zinman.
1999
"The Food of Love" premieres as part of the opera trilogy "Central Park" at Glimmerglass Opera.
2005
"The Heavenly Feast" released on Naxos American Classics recording, performed by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony.
2007
"Folk Songs" premiered at the 2007 Aspen Music Festival.
2008
"Evening Prayer" debuted and subsequently toured throughout Europe by Federico Cortese and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra.
2009
Eliot Fisk and The Albany Symphony Orchestra premiere "Guitar Concerto".
2010
Wildner Records releases "Eliot Fisk-The Red Guitar", featuring Beaser's "Shenandoah" for solo guitar performed by Fisk.

Steven D. Davis leads the University of Missouri-Kansas City Wind Symphony through world premiere of "Manhattan Roll" in new wind ensemble transcription. The performance kicks off a nation-wide tour of the work at more than 25 bands across the US.
2011
Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony premiere "Ground O", a work written to commemorate Maestro Schwarz's final season as Music Director.
2012
Innova Recordings releases "Songs from The Occasions".
2014
Kevin Sedatole leads Michigan State University Band in premiere of "The End of Knowing".

Products